大象传媒

Lil was married in June 1942 with Doreen as her bridesmaid. This was a white wedding and our paternal grandmother had travelled from Heath Hayes in Stafforshire for the occasion. She was well into her eighties by then. The bridegroom and his sister had travelled from Lyde, in Hereford. Sid had been directed into war work from Chatsworth. Gardening at a Stately Home was not considered a reserved occupation and Sid had problems with his toes and wasn't passed fit for military service. He opted to go back to his parents' home in Hereford to work in a munitions factory filling shells. The substance they were using for this job had turned his skin quite yellow so that he looked as though he was suffering a very bad attack of jaundice. He and Lil had carried on their long distance love affair by Royal Mail, seeing each other now and then at Grace's home in Birmingham, a half-way house for both of them.
Again, Nell made and iced the cake and produced the wedding breakfast,as if by magic. About thirty of us managed to squeeze into our house for the occasion. Only Sid and his sister were there from his 'side'. The happy couple went off to Llandudno for their honemoon, and then left to live in Hereford where Lil, too, worked in the munitions factory.
Doreen's was the third wartime wedding in the family. She had left Chatsworth to come home to Clowne so she could work at Ranskill, near Retford, and earn a better wage to help buy all that was needed for the wedding and setting up home. Preparations were almost like an action replay of the two previous weddings, and Nell made yet another wedding cake and prepared the wedding breakfast. Doreen and Raymond spent their honeymoon in York with Raymond's grannie and other relatives living nearbye. They went to live at Parkside cottage in Baslow as Raymond was working on his father's farm at Chatsworth.
I have never known anyone so skilled at so many different crafts, or with so much energy to accomplish them, as my eldest sister, Nell. For some time before Doreen's wedding she had been working at Ranskill, the Royal Ordnance Factory, where she worked on a machine rolling cordite. The machine operators wore asbestos suits because this was a very dangerous job. The friction would spark the cordite into flames and people had been badly burned as a result. Nell would come home and say, "There was another fire today."
She was on shift work and worked on nights one week in three. Mum looked after the boys while Nell was at the factory. Of course, Frank and Les were at school during the day so there was only Geoff at home, and he was now almost three years old.
Mum suffered from ulcerated legs and Nell would come off the night shift on Monday morning and and do all the family washing before going to bed. This involvd using 'dolly pegs' to swirl the washing in the large galvanised tub which was filled with hot soapy water. Mum would have lit the fire under the copper which which was built into a corner of the 'back kitchen', and filled the copper with hot water. There was no shortage of this as Dad had a ton of concessionary coal each month, like all the coal miners. The sheets, pillow cases, tablecloths and any other whites were tubbed first, these were then put through the Ewbank mangle before they were committed to the water now boiling in the copper where they'd hubble and bubble while the next lot of clothes were being dollied. From the copper the clothes were lifted over to the mangle with the wooden copper stick. There would be a zinc bath full of clear water and the clothes were rinsed in this before the bath was filled again with cold water which had been well dosed with 'Dolly Blue', and the whites would be well dunked in this to give them that snowy white look. This wasn't the end of the process. The things would be mangled again before being put into another large container filled with a solution made with 'Robin' starch. From there they went through the mangle for the third time before being hung out to dry on the clothes line outside - weather permitting. Otherwise they were dried on the clothes horse round the fire. Towells were always given a good boil, but they didn't go through the starching and blueing process. All other items were washed according to the type of material. Woollens were washed by hand with Lux or Sylvan flakes. These were a very precious commodity and used sparingly. When all the washing was finished the water was ladled from the copper and the tub into buckets and used to swill the concrete path from the front gate to the back of the house, and the wide expanse of concrete Dad and 'Our Stan' had laid which led to the shed, the lavatory and the coalhouse. When all this was done Nell would have a cup of tea with Mum before going to her own little home to sleep for a few hours.
If she was on the day shift Mum would try to get as much of the washing done as possible before Nell got home about two-o- clock, but Nell always finished off and swilled. The washing and swilling were done before Nell went off on the afternoon shift. This meant getting up in the early hours to fill and light the copper. Ironing was done on Tuesday, using heavy flat irons which were heated by standing them on a metal contraption with the flat surface up to the bars of the fire. The iron, when hot, would be placed into a shiny metal 'slipper' which was shaped like the iron. This had two heavy wires which went from the toe to the back of the iron and clipped under the 'slipper's' rim. This was to prevent any black coal dust or ash getting onto the washing being ironed. Nell was a very gifted knitter, making all the jumpers - or jerseys, as we called them - for the boys, and knitted suits for Geoff. She would unravel old knitted garments and wash the wool to take the kinks out and then knit it into something quite different. Her favourite knitting was baby shawls and layettes, These were exquisite, with the most intricate, lacey patterns. Her knitted christening gowns are probably family heirlooms. People would bring her the wool and she would knit it up for them. Her war work at Ranskill was her way of contributing to the war effort and supporting Frank and all the other gallant servicemen.
As far as air raids were concerned we were fairly untroubled after those two raids on Sheffield. a stray bomb fell on a row of houses at Hodthorpe and parties of curious folk went on foot to inspect the damage. One night we were woken from sleep by the most tremendous explosion when a landmine landed in the vicinity before the siren had even sounded.
It was round about this time that the Government decreed that all children up to the age of fourteen must be innoculated against diptheria and we all queued up at an emergency innoculation clinic set up at the Weslyan Chapel schoolroom. I think that was the place we went.
Another memory of those first years was the air raid shelter started, but never finished, by Mr Scott. The Scott family lived in the third house of the row of four where Nell and her boys lived. Hetty and Bill had three sons. Keith was just slightly older than Frank, and Richard about a year older than Geoff who was almost two years old by now. David was the Scotts' baby, not yet able to walk. All three boys eventually became high ranking police officers.
Mr Scott decided to dig a shelter in in their piece of back yard and early on made good progress, digging a good six feet down and about four feet wide, and something like ten feet long, but maybe it just seemed as big as that at the time. This excavation was lined with railway sleepers. There was speculation as to where they'd come from, and how they'd been transported. The idea was that more sleepers would be laid over the top to make a solid roof. this would then be covered by a tarpaulin, and that would be covered in a deep layer of earth. It never got beyond the lining stage and we kida took it over as a super den, which imagination turned into a submarine or a Wellington bomber or a tank. Keith, Frank and Les were joined by Alan Turner and Arnie Womble. I seemed to be the only girl in the gang allowed into 'Scotts' 'ole'. The 'ole made a wonderful place to play until we had a torrential storm and it was awash with rain water to a depth of about a foot. Those in the gang who possessed wellingtons were pressed into baling out, the rest of us lifted the buckets and emptied them. We were a sory sight by the time we'd finished. Talk about mudlarks. Nell kindly allowed me to wash myself down at her house, but she couldn't help me out with clean clothes. I was not very popular with my mother when she saw the state of me.
I was never thought of as aunt by Frank and Les. We were too near in age, so I was treated as just one of the gang.
Soon after Christmas 1940 I was sent to live with my sister Pat and her husband on their farm near Sudbury, so the gang became an all male affair. I'm not sure if I was sent away because of the possibility of more air raids, or to get me away from the influence of the boys. I know my mother thought I was becoming too much of a tomboy' So, for about fifteen months I was banished from Clowne

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